Comment by za3faran
1 month ago
> not to mention that people in Morocco or Tunisia speak Arabic for pretty much the same reason people in Peru or Mexico speak Spanish
Not really. The European colonization of Latin America (and North America in general) was extremely bloody, and rooted in eradication and subjugation and erasure of the local culture. The native languages in the Americas are all but gone and been replaced with Spanish/Portugese/etc. We also saw what they did in the Levant, India, Africa, etc.
On the other hand, the Islamic (not Arab) conquests preserved the local culture. This is why Berber is still spoken in North Africa for example. And this is also why an extremely significant number of famous and prominent Islamic scholars came from Persia and the surrounding region (like Abu Hanifa, Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi, and many more to list here). Not to mention countries further east like India and Indonesia as Islam spread. As a matter of fact, there are more non-Arab Muslims than Arab Muslims.
I attended a lecture by a Chinese Muslim who talked about the history of Islam in China - one amusing point he mentioned was how a local martial art was influenced by Wudhu' (Ablution) in Islam. This points to how there was an assimilation and acceptance between Islam and the locals, and was not an eradication.
We are seeing the genocidal calls by the israelis government officials (and polls show a majority of their population agree with them).
The Arab conquest of the Middle East and North Africa (which is not the same as the Islamisation in East Asia) indeed wasn't as horrendous as the Spanish conquest of Central and South America, but it wasn't entirely peaceful, either, and even in Latin America today there are millions of native Mayan speakers.
Of course, Arab colonialism (Arabisation), European colonialism - of both the settler and non-settler type - and Zionist settler-colonialism are all distinct phenomena, with some important similarities and some important differences. Even the violent struggle between settler-colonial forces and colonial forces are very different between, say, America and Israel.
Islamic conquests - not Arab. It’s worth remembering that the longest-lasting Caliphate was the Ottoman Caliphate. As I’ve noted, Islam transcends race and ethnicity. Scholars have acknowledged that mistakes were made by some during these conquests, but such actions were contrary to the core teachings of Islam and have been openly recognized as such.
What is happening in occupied Palestine today—witnessed by the world and actively enabled by certain Western powers—is a tragic chapter in human history. History will judge it with the same moral clarity and horror as the atrocities committed by a certain German regime during and around the WWII era. Already, we are seeing a growing awareness among Western civilians, who are beginning to recognize and challenge what their governments are supporting.
> Islamic conquests - not Arab.
The Arab Empire's conquests are called both Muslim conquests or Arab conquests (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests).
> It’s worth remembering that the longest-lasting Caliphate was the Ottoman Caliphate. As I’ve noted, Islam transcends race and ethnicity.
Yes, but I was talking specifically about the Arab conquests that preceded the Ottoman Empire by centuries. The Arab conquests were in the 7th and 8th centuries. The First Crusade was in the 11th century. The Ottoman conquests were in the 14th century.
> Scholars have acknowledged that mistakes were made by some during these conquests, but such actions were contrary to the core teachings of Islam and have been openly recognized as such.
I'm not talking about religion but about history in response to a statement about the crusades having introduced warfare to the Middle East. Not only is that obviously not even remotely true, but the Arab Empire conquered and colonised the Levant, Maghreb, and Europe's Iberian Peninsula centuries before the crusades. All of this happened a long time ago, no one who was there is alive today, and I'm not trying to sit in judgment. This is just something that happened.
> History will judge it with the same moral clarity and horror as the atrocities committed by a certain German regime during and around the WWII era.
Not everything needs to be compared to the holocaust, nor, for that matter, to the atrocities in Syria this past decade that killed over half a million people and displaced almost 7 million. The atrocities in Palestine are bad enough without being "the same horror" as the killing of 80-90% of Eastern Europe's Jewish population. Nothing justifies mass killings, and each of those atrocities stands on its own.
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